Idling

Now, I'm a confirmed coffee drinker and hate tea. Tea makes me feel ill. But in Tom Hodgkinson's wonderful book How to Be Idle (HarperCollins, 2005, in its first U.S. edition), tea is praised as the civilized drink for people who desire to savor life and eschew the frenetic pace of post-industrial life, which he sees as fueled by coffee. Here is a portion of a 16th century Chinese poem by Hsu Ts'eshu (there's suposed to be an umlaut or the Chinese equivalent on the first "u"), as quoted by Hodgkinson:

Proper Moments for Drinking Tea

When one's heart and hands are idle...

Tired after reading poetry...

Engaged in conversation deep at night...

Before a bright window and a clean desk...

When the day is clear and the breeze is mild...

On a day of light showers...

In a painted boat near a small wooden bridge...

In a forest with tall bamboos...

In a pavilion overlooking lotus flowers on a summer day...

In a quiet, secluded temple...

Near famous springs and quaint rocks....

My picture is from a local Middle Eastern restaurant, where more coffee is consumed than tea, but it suggests a similar inclination for relaxing, drinking, and conversing. And here's another local spot for idling:

SEPTEMBER SUNDAY

The coffee took some work, as the electric coffeemaker broke. In fact, this was a week of breaking. I broke a small bone in my right wrist during the rescue of a trapped hummingbird. My car's water pump broke and cost me a lot of money. Then the coffeemaker went berserk. But the bubbles at the top of the coffee in the French press are beautiful. You'd never see these inside the coffeemaker, no sireebob.

The sun cleared off the early fog and shone in on the table.

There are pale violet asters, white hydrangea, butterfly bush, Mina lobata, and pale yellow and deep orange nasturtium. The flowering vines (including the orange and yellow Mina lobata above) are coming into their own. There's cypress vine with mixed blossoms in pink, deep rose, and white; climbing Thunbergia with rich yellow-orange blossoms and medium green heart-shaped leaves; Love-in-a-Puff, with intricately lobate green leaves, tiny white flowers on stalks, and pale green balloons; climbing spinach, coming along slowly; morning glories, mostly deep purple, with one Heavenly Blue; and one more vine still a mystery. I'm hoping it's cardinal flower, wither red or yellow.